Thabiti Anyabwile is a pastor of Anacostia River Church in southeast Washington, D.C., and a Council member of The Gospel Coalition. He is the author of several books, including Reviving the Black Church. Ligon Duncan is chancellor and CEO of Reformed Theological Seminary and a TGC Council member. He has co-authored, edited, or contributed to more than 35 books.

You can listen to this episode of The Gospel Coalition podcast here or watch it on video.

Recently I found an evangelistic appeal that closed a book by a well-known American pulpiteer. He always, according to his nomenclature, wants to “provide the audience an opportunity to make Jesus the Lord of their lives,” and, as in his spoken medium, suggested the need of his reader and a prayer as a fitting response to his message.

“Are you at peace with God? A void exists in every person’s heart that only God can fill. I’m not talking about joining a church or finding religion. I’m talking about finding life and peace and happiness.” Having established the need….

I have tried to establish a narrative illustrating the factors that have altered American evangelicalism in the last two centuries and the way in which Baptists in the South experienced the change. The purpose of this series has been to give an interpretive background to the differences of doctrinal perception presently experienced between Calvinists and non-Calvinists in the Southern Baptist Convention.

We began with the conversion of Ann and Adoniram Judson to Baptist views. We viewed their commitment to truth, to the doctrines of grace, and to the glory of the triune God as expressive of evangelical commitments in general and Baptist ideals in particular in the first two decades of the nineteenth century. These views, given fullest confessional expression in the Charleston Association Confession of Faith, were shared by most writers, teachers, and preachers among Southern Baptists until the waning of the nineteenth century and the dawning of the twentieth.

I think there has been a misunderstanding. Trevin Wax is concerned that I am writing off my non-Calvinist brethren as “on the same plane of theological degeneracy as man-centered liberals.” He then compares that to the non-Calvinist argument that all Calvinists have the seeds of hyper-Calvinism ready to blossom in their breast. Both types of argumentation are then chastised. Wax gives advice that we recognize how good for each other we actually are. Perhaps in another post, in a different context, I would argue exactly what he presents me as arguing here – that Arminianism and other types of non-Calvinism do harbor a philosophical stance that more easily invites a humanistic/naturalistic approach to religious studies, biblical studies, and doctrinal development.

That was not this post, however. His concerns about any purpose to “chase out brothers and sisters who are not of the same theological persuasion,” I would suppose, are more aimed at the non-Calvinist than the Calvinist. They certainly have more experience at that in the Southern Baptist context than do the Calvinists and exercised that option, in my opinion, in confessionally sound ways during the decades of the Conservative Resurgence. Even now, unless we want another situation of sign but don’t believe culture on our hands, by-laws at Southern Baptist institutions require certain confessional commitments; to ignore these would be a failure of stewardship before God and Southern Baptists. J. P. Boyce’s discussion of the three-fold level of confessional knowledge and responsibility that he proposed in his Three Changes in Theological Institutions has genuine relevance on this issue.

[The following is a guest post by Jared Longshore. Jared is a pastor at Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, FL, a PhD candidate at SBTS, and blogger at http://jaredlongshore.com]

***I sent this to Trevin before posting, and he in turn has sent me a very thoughtful and brotherly response. Trevin’s response has helped me to express myself more clearly and refine my critique of his post. May such a spirit continue to mark our conversations about these things in the SBC.

I thank God for the work of Trevin Wax on the Gospel Coalition blog. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading his posts and will continue to do so. I believe his recent post, “Does Moving Away From Calvinism Necessarily Lead to Liberalism?” in which he questions Dr. Tom Nettles’ post “Here’s The Point: Calvinists and Non-Calvinists in the SBC” provides an opportunity to consider the place of theological dialogue in our cooperative mission. I stand in whole-hearted agreement with Trevin when he says his aim is “strengthening our ties of cooperation for mission.” But I think there are certain principles in his response that, if adopted, might stunt both our theological growth and cooperation for mission. Since Trevin has offered his thoughts, I offer my own in four principles that I believe he has overlooked in his response to Nettles. These principles are, I think, essential to strengthening Southern Baptist ties for ministry and missions.

The tragedy on today’s ecclesiastical landscape is the number of heretics who are thriving inside evangelicalism. They are having a field day and hardly anyone is raising a voice against them. Behind closed doors we all seem to agree that these “brethren” are spreading serious error. But as soon as the door opens and one of them walks in, suddenly, we seem to be unsure and would rather be silent for the sake of Christian love.

This begs the question, “How should we as Christians respond to the many wrong teachings that surround us, especially those serious heresies being propagated by people who are in the church?” This is an important question because we are living in days when the very nature of evangelical Christianity is being turned upside down. This is especially true because of those who are teaching what we call “the prosperity gospel” in its various shades. Many lives are being destroyed. The way of salvation is being confused. How should we respond to all this?

We should respond to this by deliberately engaging in Christian polemics. What does the word “polemics” mean? Polemics means a strong verbal or written rebuttal of someone else’s belief. It is an argument that disputes another person’s opinion and shows that it is not true. It is the opposite of apologetics, which is a strong verbal or written defence of one’s own belief in the light of the attacks of other people. In other words, polemics and apologetics are two sides of the same coin. An apologist begins with the truth under attack and seeks to defend it, while a polemist begins with an error being propagated and seeks to refute it.

One or two more matters should come up for discussion before I finish my post-game analysis of the Slick-Waldron debate over the gifts of prophecy, tongues, and healing. Here, I think, we pass from the good things I learned and the ugly of my confusion over the debate question to the bad.

I think Matt’s use of 1 Corinthians 1:7 was bad. 1 Corinthians 1:7 reads: “so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In this statement Paul congratulates the Corinthian church for the fact that they do not lack in any gift as they await the Second Coming. Matt pressed the text as a proof that all the spiritual gifts given to the Corinthians are normative for all churches till the Second Coming.

Well, quite evidently the text teaches no such thing. I actually asked….